SF Mayor Ed Lee aims at transit

ON S.F.'S TRANSPORTATION MESS

Published 8:04 pm, Friday, February 1, 2013

Muni isn't making its schedules. Anyone who drives knows about potholes and tire-grabbing cracks. Bike riders compete with a wave of new taxis who zoom by double-parked trucks. Parking meters now operate on Sunday, the better to bring in $60 tickets.

San Francisco's transportation world is a uncoordinated, infuriating mess. There are bright ideas such as tech help in hunting for parking and smartphone updates on Muni delays. But there's also aging rolling stock and sardine conditions on major routes with only a handful of riders on others. A string of City Hall reorganizations and work rule changes aren't paying off out on the road.

Mayor Ed Lee, ever judicious and patient, wants to wade into this nest of problems. Just as he did in overhauling city taxes and pensions, his solution is to lock the best-and-brightest in a room for several months and wait for a consensus list of solutions to emerge. Then he will turn to voters for a possible car tax and bond measure to pay for the plans.

This project is in baby clothes right now. Lee is throwing out ideas that sound both sensible and far-fetched. The creaking behemoth known as Muni could easily take up the first five or 10 slots on anyone's priority list. But the mayor is talking up an expanded ferry fleet and a BART turnaround somewhere beneath the city to speed up headways.

It might be better, Mr. Mayor, to stick with the big stuff and what you can control. BART and Caltrain are beyond City Hall's direct reach. Let's keep the goals and dollar signs plausible and manageable. Skip the flashy brainstorms like congestion pricing, that euphemism for taxing anyone driving near downtown.

Other mayors have dreamed of fixing transit, making Lee no different. But he clearly believes that his no-drama approach will make a difference. He's letting the informal transit think tank composed of politicos and planning wonks define the basic problems and nudge forward solutions. At that point, Lee can step in and try convincing the rest of San Francisco to pay for the improvements.

It's vintage Lee, who used a similar approach to hammer out two successful ballot measures last November that replaced a job-punishing payroll tax and created a housing fund. In each case, he assembled the warring clans and worked out a compromise deal. The year before, he did much the same with a measure that partially curbed the city's runaway pension costs. In each case, the end result was that no major interest group launched a campaign to sink the proposals, and the mayor won.

Transportation - a word that encompasses Clipper Cards, cable cars and curb cuts - will be the biggest test yet. But a composed and confident Lee may have the right approach in making essential improvements in a city that is demanding change.

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